I know what you’re thinking.

It’s been months of nothing Eric, and then you put up twenty posts in one day?

Sorry about that. Here’s the deal: Tea Finely Brewed is back. Not that it ever went anywhere, but there were some long overdue issues I wanted to sort through. Many of those have been ironed out, which means I can now shift my focus from site development to writing about tea, something I’ve sorely missed over the last couple of months.

You’d be amazed how much that hour of sitting down and really thinking about the tea I drink helps balance life out. I’ve got a cupboard full of wonderful teas to try, but when life is way too busy, I find it incredibly challenging to take that time out. Here’s to taking control of life and allowing plenty of time for family, tea and The Wire.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Sorry ’bout that | No comment |
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There’s a reason for that.

You see, I think I’ve been missing the mark with my reviews. Too often, I think there’s a tendency for my reviews to waffle somewhat, to be less economical with words than they ought to be.

So I’m trying something new.

Short, snappy reviews. Expect a paragraph, maybe two. But expect reviews more often. I have quite a few companies send me their teas for review purposes, and I intend to ramp things up a bit. The reviews will also be much more tightly integrated into the Tea Marketplace.

Your comments on the new format are most welcome — I love feedback!

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Did that review seem awfully short? | 4 comments |
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Over the past few months I’ve been working hard at developing The Tea Marketplace. It’s a big job, believe me. But there are now over 600 products listed from 14 companies, and the Marketplace is finely starting to take shape in the way I’d envisioned ? a place where people can find and compare similar teas from different companies, with a bit of my personal advice thrown in for good measure.

So please, check it out and let me know what you think:

http://teafinelybrewed.com/shop/

And seriously, I want to know what you think. I’m not just saying that. My email address is eric@teafinelybrewed.com, so if you have any thoughts on how the Marketplace could be more useful, send them along.

Besides working on the Marketplace, I’ve also launched a little tea coupons section. I’m subscribed to an awful lot of tea companies’ newsletters, so I figured it would be cool to have a place where I can post their special offers. You’ll see the three most recent coupons listed in the sidebar, and if you want you can also subscribe to the tea coupons (it acts like a blog, just like this one). Click here to subscribe.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Tea Finely Brewed update | No comment |
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If you’re looking to pick up some cheap tea and teaware, head over to Teavana and take a look at their New Year’s sale. They’ve slashed 30%-75% off some items.

For some high quality pu-erh, I heartily recommend Bana Tea Company. I’ve reviewed two of their pu-erhs lately, including a very special wild-grown denong pu-erh.

Finally, those Canadians among you should check out Orange Tea Co.. I’m looking forward to trying some of their teas soon and reporting back to you.

If you are interested in advertising on Tea Finely Brewed, either now or down the track, please do get in touch. There are a few low-cost spots up for grabs in January.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Thank you to Tea Finely Brewed sponsors | No comment |
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Post tags: Bana Tea Company, Orange Tea Co, Teavana

It’s been a fun year. Some of the highlights for me have included:

• Reaching 100 subscribers back in August (the blog now has over 200 subscribers)
• Having a few posts go viral on StumbleUpon
• Interviewing Mary Lou Heiss, who co-wrote The Story of Tea, one of my favourite books about tea
• Meeting other tea bloggers, tea store owners and others with a passion for tea through the blog and Twitter
• Signing up my first advertisers (thanks Bana Tea Company and Teavana!)
• Drinking tons of tea, including many I’d never even heard of before starting the blog

All in all, Tea Finely Brewed has been a great project for me personally. I hope you’ve enjoyed it along the way! As always, I would love to hear from you if you have any suggestions for topics you would like to see covered on the blog. Just send me an email.

Unveiling a new section of Tea Finely Brewed

I alluded to this a few weeks back, but today I’m happy to mention this to you. I’ve been working hard on launching a new section of the site where you can compare similar teas from different vendors. It’s still a work in progress, but if you would like to check it out, go here:

http://teafinelybrewed.com/shop/

Ultimately, I would like that section of the site to help anyone buying tea online to find the best of any specific variety of tea. To make that happen, I’ll be adding in listings from more tea merchants and spend a lot more time writing reviews.

If you have any feedback, I’d love to hear it. Please contact me.

Check out the Steepster Holiday Tea Gift Contest

If you haven’t checked out Steepster before, do yourself a favour and go check it out. It’s pretty much the coolest, slickest community of tea lovers out there. And right now, they’re running a great contest. Seriously, they’re giving away tons of tea and a Sorapot (all up, worth over $825) to one very lucky tea lover. It’s just a shame that this contest is only open to people living in North America. My little heart is broken.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | I’m one! | One comment |
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Post tags: buying tea online, Steepster

I was thrilled this weekend to see that the subscriber count for Tea Finely Brewed has jumped up to 100. When I first started this blog back in December, I figured it would be fun to write about tea ? but I didn’t really imagine a simple blog about tea could develop a readership. It’s humbling to know that this blog has, slowly but surely, attracted a small band of readers.

To those of you who are subscribed: Thank you!

To those of you who aren’t subscribed, click here to join this illustrious little community of tea lovers.

As a gesture of thanks and general celebration, I’m going to give away a small gift of tea this week. To win yourself some free tea, all you need to do is leave a comment on this post telling me what you’d like to see more of on this blog. At the end of the week I’ll randomly pick someone and get in touch with you to find out what kind of tea you’d like.

It’s as simple as that.

I’ve tried to keep the blog fairly diverse, writing about everything from novelty tea cups to the history of Earl Grey tea. I’ve written tea reviews, answered common questions about tea and interviewed interesting folk in the world of tea (stay tuned: I have a really cool interview to publish later this week).

I would love to know what you would like to see more of. And of course, if there’s something you haven’t enjoyed, I’d love to hear that too.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a list of the 10 most popular articles on the blog since it started:

• Stain: The Teacup that Improves with Use
• 3 Brilliant Tea Kettle Designs: Tea-Off Competition Winners
• 19 Weird and Wacky Teapots
• Does green tea have caffeine?
• Grow Your Own Tea
• Why does my green tea taste bad?
• 7 Common Questions about Pu-erh Tea
• 7 Common Questions About Black Tea
• Arya Ruby: Darjeeling 1st Flush 2008
• The TiFi Tea Strainer

© eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | Tea Finely Brewed hits 100 subscribers | 7 comments |
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Post tags: competition, free tea

Dearest tea lovers, I would like to take a moment to introduce you to my son: Benedict Gordon.

Benny was born on April 18, 2009, after 27 hours of labour. He came out weighing 4 kilograms (8 pound 13 ounces) and measuring 54 centimetres from head to tiny toe.

© eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | Benedict Gordon | 7 comments |
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